Just Another Body

I’ve always found curious the saying that man is born good, and it is society that corrupts him. Perhaps seeing so many people from good families fall into the world’s vices and end up wandering aimlessly through Medellín’s dark streets makes me question it more and more. Those same streets—cold and soulless—adorned with the waste of those who have lost all hope of reclaiming a dignified life, turn sidewalks and bridges into a nativity scene of trash and decay. There, among the shadows, shelters the protagonist of this story.

Susana was a young law student at a prestigious university. Blonde, from a good family, the pride and example of her parents. Her life seemed perfect—without worries, without urgency.

But routine began to take its toll. Little by little, she lost her focus until academics no longer mattered. Her classmates excused her behavior:

—“Let her be, the girl has the right to have some fun,” they said.

What seemed like a harmless release became the beginning of her downfall. Absences became routine; she showed up to class drunk, turned in assignments late, and started to enjoy the scandal her new lifestyle caused. What had once been a symbol of discipline became the latest gossip on campus. Professors wondered what was happening to her; Susana simply ignored them.

Soon, alcohol wasn’t enough. She wanted more—something that would take her out of herself in seconds, that would erase the discipline that had oppressed her for so long, and finally allow her to rest the carnal impulses that had tormented her for years. And she found it.

One night at a party, a dealer offered her exactly what she was looking for: a blue pill, reserved only for select clients. The rules were simple—it had to be consumed with another person, and then the magic would happen.

And so it did.

Susana invited her best friend Laura, who had no idea what was about to happen. She sold her the idea that it was a unique, sensory, transformative experience—that she would never regret living it. Skeptical at first, they decided to double the dose “to feel more.”

At first, they felt nothing. Thirty minutes went by as they waited for the spectacular drug to take them on a trip—but the trip never came. Then, sleep overcame them. For three days, they remained unconscious, trapped in a hell of hallucinations, voices, and shadows. Every minute felt eternal and fleeting at once; they couldn’t physically comprehend what was happening to them—they felt their surroundings, yet the more they tried to feel, the less they could.

When they finally awoke, they were not the same. Susana was in Laura’s body, and Laura in Susana’s. The hangover was unbearable, and the confusion even worse. At first, they panicked, but soon they grew accustomed to the novelty—they were living the promised experience.

The ecstasy didn’t last long. After an hour, they fainted and returned to their original bodies.

Laura ran away immediately and was never heard from again. Susana, on the other hand, was marked forever. The experience became an obsession—her mind and body begged to feel it again, to live again.

She wanted to repeat it. And she did.

She deceived others, convincing them that it was a harmless drug, one that left no side effects, no addiction—that it was the panacea of all hallucinogens. She changed bodies over and over again. She reveled in the forbidden: feeling the passions, the pains, and the memories of others. She inhabited so many bodies that her own being became unrecognizable. Her real body no longer belonged to her—it was just an empty vessel, unworthy of being filled with her own life.

Her heart was scattered among trash cans, along with the remnants of humanity she still had left. Her name, her story, her family—all faded away, like a blurred memory in the voices of those who once knew her.

Her addiction pushed her to the edge—leaving her a shell, a body without mind or consciousness, wandering through the city.

A human being who would never again find the light.